Outline and evaluate two or more social psychological theories of aggression

Outline and evaluate two or more social psychological theories of aggression.Deindividuation theory is a social psychological explanation of aggression. It explains how rationalindividuals can become aggressive hooligans in a mob or crowd as it suggests that losing their senseof identity and self awareness deindividuates people. Individuals in groups fail to see theconsequences of their actions, and the social norms they would normally follow are forgotten andthis is when aggressive behaviour occurs. Deindividuation causes people unquestioningly to followgroup norms instead of personal norms and sometimes these group norms lead to aggression.According to Zimbardo, in a crowd we feel anonymous and unaccountable and thus are lessconcerned about negative evaluations by others and less likely to be prevented from actingaggressively by guilt or shame. Prentice-Dunn identified two factors involved in Deindividuation; lossof public self-awareness where individuals lose a sense that others are aware of them and that theyare identifiable. Loss of public self0awareness leads to a loss of public standards of behaviour or alowering of inhibitions. Another factor is loss of private self-awareness where the individual losestheir own sense of awareness of themselves. Loss of private self-awareness leads to a loss ofinternal standards and hence an over-reliance on environmental cues, for example others in thecrowd.Research evidence supports the idea of Deindividuation. Zimbardo found, in a replication ofMilgarm's shock study, that hooded and anonymous, and hence deindividuated, participants weremore likely to shock other participants than those who were identifiable. This suggests thatanonymity would appear to contribute to aggressive behaviour. However, it was suggested that thewearing of white hoods by the participants and the subsequent association with the Ku Klux Klan mayhave affected the intensity of the shocks given, rather than the anonymity of the participants.Deindividuation theory has also been supported by different cultures in a study by Watson. Across-cultural study was conducted and found that warriors who disguised their appearance tendedto be more aggressive, suggesting that deindividuation effects are universal. This research wassupported by Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment where the guards wore military stylesuniforms and silver reflector sunglasses, making eye contact impossible. It was thought that thisdisguised appearances and deindividuation was what caused the guards to show aggressivebehaviour. Also during this experiment prisoners were dehumanised and thus deindividuated by theclothes they wore and being addressed only by their number, thus increasing their anonymity whichmade it easier for the guards to behave aggressively towards them. However, there is some disputeas to what caused the aggressive acts of the guards and it has been suggested that they were actingin terms of perceived social roles, rather than losing their sense of socialised individual identity. Thestudy failed to tell us much about how real guards behave, but rather how people behave when theyare asked to act like guards.Also, in Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment and replication of Milgram's study, there is theethical issues that need to be considered. In particular, in the Stanford prison experiment,participants were subjected to much psychological harm and stress, in particular the prisoners whowere humiliated and abused. Zimbardo himself accepted that certain aspects of the study wereunethical and admitted that he became over-involved in the study. In fact, the prisoners weretreated so brutally that the experiment had to be stopped after just six days.

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In the replication of Milgram's study, ethical issues included deception, and lack of informed consent,as the participant was not told the true nature of the study and so had to be deceived. Theparticipants right to withdraw was also an issue as it was made to seem that they had to continueshocking the learner. Ethical issues like these however, can be overcome with debriefing, whichZimbardo implemented.…read more

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Research evidence supporting Social Learning Theory comes from Bandura Bobo doll experimentwhere children were shown various scenarios involving aggressive behaviour to a Bobo doll by amodel. He found that children in the aggressive condition showed more verbal and physicalaggression. Bandura concluded that the chances of aggressive acts being imitated increased if theaggressive model was reinforced but decreased if the model was punished.…read more